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Thursday, November 3, 2011

True Communication

Before leaving my work at the community mental health center I was beginning to see some research articles about the damage of social networking on the internet through sights like Facebook, My Space, and Twitter. Also the potential pitfalls of text messaging. I have witnessed the issues with text messaging first hand with teens. I have seen where two teens are sitting side by side texting each other instead of talking to each other. It seems as if they have forgotten how to talk to each other.

I am not saying that texting, Facebook or any other social media sight are bad in and of themselves. There are many times when my husband recieved a business call here at home and he does not have pen and paper on the mower. Texting him the contact information can be quite useful. Also there are some people who live far away that I am able to keep in touch with due to Facebook. There are a couple of concerns that I have. First of all, things like Facebook can overtake your life. My second concern is that less and less actual conversations are happening due to virtual conversations. True face to face conversation is becoming less and less. There are actual things that we need in life that happen through actual interaction with other human beings that do not happen in the cyber world. We become less and less able to deal in the real world. Also not to mention that in cyber world a person can be anything they want to be instead of who they really are.

I know myself I am finding that I miss actual conversation with others. It seems everyone is so busy we don't make time for each other anymore. At church we hear sermons, say hi, and shake hands. Then in Sunday School we talk about our lesson and may be share a prayer request or two (likely few if any in our groups actually pray for the request is my guess, I try to but often forget). Then we go home and it is called fellowship. There is no conversation, no getting involved in one anothers lives, no spurring one another on to love and good deeds, no bearing one anothers burdens. The Lord made us to interact with one another. We need to pray together, cry together, pray for one another, bring food when someone had surgery, we need to eat together. Some of these things can only happen to a certain level in cyber world and some can not happen at all.

My late night point (I typically post late at night since that is when my house is quiet) is to enjoy your text messages and social media, but keep them under control so they don't overtake your life. Also while at the same time enjoying your friends on cyber world make sure you still maintain actual face to face friends. They all have some value to both you and the world around you. I know I am going to make it a point to have more face to face fellowship with those I love in my life.